SOLEMN PLEDGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24697, 28 August 1941, Page 7

SOLEMN PLEDGE

BRITAIN AND AMERICA STAND AGAINST AGGRESSORS (Rec. 9 p.m.) - RUGBY, Aug. 27. Commenting on world reactions to Mr Churchill’s broadcast,' The Times states’that Churchill’s reference to the Japanese menace has received universal support outside. Axis countries, and after citing the Japariese protest it continues: “\The peace her spokesmen profess to desire is hers to command, with the goodwill of both the great Powers of the Atlantic, but the policy of appeasement which consisted in accepting fair words as security for action will not be' applied again to the Axis. By appealing to force in a world struggling to escape from his domination, Hitler has thus counselled peace-loving peoples mot only to gather force to themselves but to! maintain it as long after victory as may be necessary before international justice can be made secure by other means. The moral responsibility that will thus be forced upon them is heavy indeed, and the deep significance of thb AngloAmerican declaration lies in the mutual promise to bear it together. A necessary corollary to the resolve to disarm aggressors while retaining sufficient force to keep them impotent is a solemn pledge that the power thus assumed shall be wielded in no selfish spirit. The disarmament clause of eight points-is logically and morally inseparable from that which disclaims any intention to bring about the economic ruin of the German peqple, declaring on the contrary that it is not in the interests of the world and of our two countries that so large a nation should be unprosperous. That clause irttplies that the two English-speaking Powers which events have already made trustees for the future of so many wronged peoples voluntarily undertake to extend their trust so as to secure the real welfare of those now arrayed against them under false leaders whom they are determined to overthrow. This is the assumption of a mission.”